Win the chance to have your family tree researched and recorded - worth £150 *NOW CLOSED*

just going for walks with my dad.

just going for walks with my dad.

My dad took me to Dudley zoo as a treat. We walked under a large pointed arch, and he stopped to explain that it was the jawbone of a whale. He made me feel my own jawbone and asked me to imagine how big the whale must be if that was his jawbone. I was amazed and never forgot that tiny incident - must be 68 years ago.

Being taken to visit my godmother as a child. She was an elderly lady, a friend of my maternal grandmother who’d died before I was born. The journey involved 2 bus journeys and a ride across the river Clyde on the Renfrew Ferry and the day usually ended with a fish supper in a cafe - a rare treat!

My Dad finally affording us a little holiday - a caravan in the woods on farm. A calf was being born and the farmer woke us up at 5am to see it. Best memory ever - amazing!

Days out to Weymouth travelling by steam train. There were several trains a day from where I lived and the station platform was always full of friends and neighbours with their children all carrying buckets and spades. We spent the day on the beach building sand castles and playing in the sea.
Also visiting my aunt who lived in the country and being allowed to feed her chickens.

Opening a Build It set on Christmas morning, a construction set that I had hoped for but never expected to get.

As a child laying on my stomach in a field on a sunny day trying to catch lizards who were so quick you rarely caught one . None to catch these days unfortunately.

Sitting on a big grey pony in the West Indies during the war with all the sights & sounds of the tropics.

I can still recall with pleasure playing on my swing, aged about 4, holding my legs out in front of me and looking up at the clouds and trying to visualise precisely what the clouds consisted of and why the clouds consisted of so many differing shapes.

Sitting on St Andrews beach with my older sister. We were alway taken there by my great Aunt and Uncle. It was such a wonderful day even if the wind was howling and it usually was. My sister and I would put our swimmies on and rush to paddle in the sea. On our return from the cold sea my great Aunt would pour hot tomato soup from a flask and we would sit round the pinic table eating bread and bowls of soup tainted with sand.

My Aunt emigrated to Canada when in her early twenties and married a lumberjack. Every couple of years they would return to Britain for a holiday and I really looked forward to going out for afternoon tea with my Uncle Leonard. This would have been the early sixties and my first memory is at the age of four going to a beautiful little teashop in a nearby coastal town and ordering "Toasted teacakes for two, please", I felt so grown up!

Going as high as I could on the swings. I could close my eyes and forget the world existed.

Sitting with my grandmother who was born in 1899, listening intently to stories of her own childhood with her 8 brothers and sisters.

my gran and grandad sold fruit and veg from a barrow in Birmingham Bull Ring and in the school holidays they used to take me with them. It was great as I could roam all around the market as all the barrow boys would watch out for me so much freedom sad that children today cant do that sort of thing

Eating a fruit cake made by my grandma on my 5th birthday.

My Dad reading Winnie the Pooh to me at bedtime. He would leave a few words out and I would point that out to him.

My Grandfather lived near Brighton and we went every year in the school summer holidays to visit him for 2 weeks, we got the train from Blackpool and had such good times

As a child my father regularly took me to Somerset House to help in the search for his grandmother. We used to look through numerous, large volumes of handwritten entries which I remember finding fascinating. Sadly my dad died before we did find out who his grandmother was so it would be lovely to win this prize now.

Eating! Pomegranates and figs brought as gifts from visiting cousins aunts and uncles. Yoghurt, hummus and aubergine before they were commonly available. Marmalade or ginger cakes, parkin and curd tart! Noisy and busy
cross- generational family mealtimes each evening with my NE England meets Middle East family!

Being taken by my father, with my mother and sister, in his car with two neighbours to see the King and Queen wave from the balcony of Buckingham Palace on VE day. The happiness of the crowds, the sear lights in the dark are magic memories to this day.

Going on a cycle ride for a picnic. I was very young, I sat on a little seat on my dad's bike's crossbar.

Leaving Scotland on the steam train Heart of Midlothian and arriving at Leeds Station to start our new life in England where they appeared to be speaking a foreign language.

My dad telling me stories before bed time, the weekends visiting different parts of the city, my grandparents.

running to the shops as a young girl ! !